Growing Branches: Fenced In and Out

Remember when your new baby learned to crawl and for the first time when you left a room she might not be exactly where you put her when you returned? Well that's how it was when the Garden Friendly Dogs started to roam. As puppies they were quite content to stay on the porch, but soon were old enough to play out in the yard without us around. That meant it was time for a fence.

We wanted an invisible underground fence, but they were too young to be trained to it. So we put up the Ody fence. Ody is our daughter's dog and when he came to visit us the first time, James and I made a temporary fence that gave him lots of room to play. We made it out of metal stakes and that orange plastic netting you often see around construction sites. It was easy to put up and take down.

So the Ody fence was put into good use while the puppies were getting old enough to train. Meanwhile we had a representative from Invisible Fence come out to the house and give us an estimate. We didn't want to take in the whole two acres as that would give Fred and Ethel access to the garden and the areas where all of my daffodils are planted, so instead we wanted to include a little less than one acre. We were totally shocked when the man told us the cost would be $2500. Holy smoke!!!

After doing a little research, we found out that all underground dog fencing is made by the same company, PetSafe, and they offer a self installation option for only $500. What a difference!! We bought ours at Lowes. Online reviews suggested 14 gauge wire instead of the wire included in the package and we used orange flag stakes that we also bought at Lowes instead of the white ones that came with the system.

It took us an entire Saturday to install, but it was very easy to do. The training guide was very easy to follow and now, two weeks later, Fred and Ethel have a healthy respect for the "static correction zone " and are enjoying roaming their new territory.

However, being garden friendly dogs, measures had to be taken to keep them IN the yard, but OUT of the flowerbeds. So James, who is a saint, spent this Saturday installing a long term temporary picket fence around the main flower beds at the back of the house. The GFDs had already dug up some of the roots around the sweet bay magnolia and standard gardenia. In a couple of months all the day lilies will be coming up and the hydrangeas will be blooming, so it was time to pitch them out of those areas. It is not the most attractive solution, but I am hoping that if they grow up unable to get in these beds, then these areas won't even register on their radars in future years. We'll see!